It is punishingly hot.
85F/30C (that sounds so much pleasanter to unaccustomed ears: 30 degrees, if only)
60% humidity
heat index 91
Ow.
Clearly it's time for buckets of iced tea. Here's how my Mom made it, by the gallon, with a syrup. Never cloudy, always bright.
In a small saucepan,
2 cups (or so) tap water.
No real need to measure, but you want to avoid boiling over.
5 tea bags
(Plain old black tea from the grocery store -- Tetley, Red Rose,
Salada -- whatever's on sale in the 100-count box)
10 tablespoons sugar
(ah, those were the days, and even so, Dad added MORE sugar
to each glassful he drank )
Have ready:
1 lemon
1/2 lime
ICE and cold water
1-gallon vessel
Bring the tea and sugar mixture just to boiling. Stir while heating to be sure all the sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat, let cool on the burner (or not).
While the syrup is working, squeeze lemon and lime juice into the vessel. Fill halfway with cold water. Add the syrup, ice, and more water to make one gallon.
Mom used to make extra syrup and freeze or refrigerate it, so as not to be stirring hot stuff when it was punishingly hot. And so as not to run out.
I make a 2-quart version with 4 teabags, 3 packets of Equal, 1/2 a lemon and 1/2 a lime. I just boil the teabags and add everything else after. I also keep extra brew in the fridge, mostly so that it's already cold when needed.
We always dumped the rinds into the tea, the oil in the rinds adds flavor. Back in the day, we didn't wash the fruit first, but these days I do.
We didn't fuss with greenery, mint and such, or with bush or tree fruits, but feel free if you like that sort of thing. And fool with the ratio of tea and sweetening until you find the balance of strength and sweetness you like -- which, now that I think of it, is pretty good advice for much of life.
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4 comments:
Nice to see your blog flash up in my reader.
And I'm definitely saving this recipe for a summer day! Thanks, Melanie
To a British tea drinker (hot, a very little milk, please), this recipe is quite astonishing; if it ever got to be really hot weather here, I could almost consider trying it out! I only drank iced tea once - out of a can - and it was an abomination.
Maybe I should try a small batch anyway..... if I waited for hot weather here, I'd never do it.
Rachel, do try it. Truth be told, I sometimes make it in the dead of winter,it's That Good. That stuff in cans -and bottles for that matter -- is flat-out awful. I don't know why it's even called "tea."
Dianh, I think I'm back. This Dickensian process of becoming an orphan (at such an advanced age) has been consuming, but I think I'm back.
Sounds delicious. I do something similar but instead of tea bags I use fresh ginger slices and add honey. It's great hot or iced. Good for insomnia, hot in wintery weather.
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